A Taste of Language and Culture

Above, Nicole Falade, an adjunct lecturer in French at City Tech and KCC, encourages her students as they prepare to order dinner in French at Les Sans Culottes, a traditional French restaurant located in Midtown. The end-of-semester outing drew about 35 students from Falade’s three French classes. “You cannot separate language from culture,” says Falade, who considers learning another language an essential skill in an increasingly globalized world.

Under Pathways, steep reductions in the number of credits for general education make it harder for colleges to retain a foreign language requirement. “With no requirement, fewer students will study a new language,” says Falade. “But this is something everyone should be exposed to.”

Pierina Guevara, a student at KCC, told Clarion that she decided to use these required credits to learn a third language in addition to English and Spanish. “It will help me as a marine biologist because I will travel to other countries and it will enable me to communicate with more people,” Guevara said. “Not everybody speaks English.”